Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the smartphone maker
trying to revive sales with new devices unveiled last week, said
an ethics officer will conduct a review into why the company
published misleading marketing materials for the products.

The ethics and compliance officer is working on an
independent report “to understand what happened,” Susan
Sheehan, a Nokia spokeswoman, said today in an interview. Nokia
said last week it was sorry for not making clear that a
promotional video and still photos within that clip weren’t
captured with its new Lumia 920 smartphone.

The gaffe draws attention to Nokia’s marketing tactics at a
time when the unprofitable company is seeking to revive its
business by challenging Apple Inc.’s iPhone and handsets running
on Google Inc.’s Android software. Nokia, based in Espoo,
Finland, is touting its camera technology and the Lumia’s
operating system from Microsoft Corp. as reasons for consumers
to switch to its devices.

Nokia rose 0.9 percent to 2.07 euros at 11:43 a.m. Helsinki
time. Before today, the stock had lost 45 percent this year.

Cameraman’s Reflection

Nokia Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop introduced the
new Lumia devices at a news conference in New York last week.
The Lumia 920 has a 4.5-inch (11-cm) screen and an 8.7-megapixel
camera with a so-called floating lens that uses software for
image stabilization. Nokia gave no details on price, carriers or
availability beyond saying the phone will go on sale in the
fourth quarter.

A video advertisement showing off the device’s camera
technology was questioned by The Verge blog hours after the
phone was demonstrated. The video shows a woman riding a bicycle
down a road and as she passes a parked trailer, the reflection
in a window reveals a large white van with lighting equipment
and a cameraman hanging out of the door filming.

While the video gave the impression that it was shot using
the Lumia 920, Nokia never claimed that was the case. The
company, in a blog posting apologizing for the confusion, said
its aim was to demonstrate what can be achieved using the image-stabilization technology.

‘Poor Judgment’

“What we understand to date is that it was nobody’s
intention to mislead, but there was poor judgment in the
decision not to use a disclaimer,” Sheehan said, declining to
name the company that produced the video. Nokia is dealing with
the situation “quickly, fairly and privately,” she said.

Nokia, whose U.S. market share peaked at 32 percent in
2001, accounted for about 2 percent of smartphone purchases in
the second quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. The iPhone
and devices using Google’s Android software combined accounted
for about 90 percent.

Nokia’s credit rating was cut to junk this year by the
three biggest rating companies, and the phonemaker has announced
more than 20,000 job cuts and closed production and research
sites in an attempt to return to profit.